This week on Dancing With The Stars it was “Ballroom Greats” night. If that isn’t a showstopper, I don’t know what is. I didn’t bother taking down the names of the three “ballroom greats” that worked with our six remaining couples because at the end of the night, it didn’t matter. The only “Ballroom Great” that did matter was our guest judge, the Tiger Woods of Ballroom Dancing himself (and who wouldn’t want that moniker hung on them ?), Donnie Burns !

*chirp chirp* Who ? *chirp chirp”

Exactly my thought too. We saw some old footage. We saw some bad hairstyles. We saw someone who might have been Donnie Burns ages ago. Then we got to see Donnie Burns now in all of his peroxided, spray tanned, botoxed glory come walking out like he was an animatronic robot on loan from Disneyland. To make matters worse, the crew just added another chair to the judge’s desk and the four of them looked like a bunch of sardines up there. Being that close to Bruno & his gyrations almost proved too much for Len. And speaking of Bruno & his gyrations, did anyone else notice that he was even more over the top than usual ? I think he was jealous of all the attention that Donnie was getting just a week after we were all reminded about Bruno’s stint in an Elton John video.

That, however, is neither here nor there because we are coming to you LIVE from the I get tired of wondering why they don’t have a corporate sponsor Crystal Ballroom . It’s the 7th week of competition which means somewhere in there I missed a week and last week was actually Week 6 and not Week 5 like I thought. Oops.

My wife does not like Brooke’s royal blue gown length sheath or her hair tonight. I thought she looked good but what do I know ? I only watch Project Runway and not Shear Genius.

TEAM DANCE !!!

We only have 6 couples and ABC had 2 hours to fill so out comes the Team Dance Gimmick to help fill time. Historically the team with the sluttier black outfits ALWAYS wins so Romeo, Chelsea & Ralph are all looking good for a couple of extra points in their totals just because of their costumes. They spin. They twist. They put some “product” in Ralph’s “hair” though I am not sure what. The Pretty in Pink team decided to lead with their breasts (Len’s comment, not mine) and they had Kendra shake as much as she could to try and distract Len & Donnie from their team’s obvious shortcomings. It must have worked because the two teams tied at 30 so there was no advantage to this silliness other than to kill some of that extra 30 minutes.

(ABC also aired some verrrrry long segments before each number as time killers. Don’t believe me ? I started watching from the beginning at 8:45pm and was completely caught up thanks to the magic of the fast forward button on my DVR by 9:25pm)

Chelsea Kane – The latest growing up fast Disney Girl had the unenviable spot at the top of the program and she had short hair tonight. She has yet to get a decent score without the extensions. Once again her partner, Mark Ballas, decided that they should push the envelope with some modern attitude style moves and you could just tell that Len was going to rip it to shreds. The score wasn’t great despite the standing ovation from the audience but I still think Chelsea is safe.

Kirstie Alley – Here is where we start to see if Kirstie has what it takes to win. She is having to do her second dance of the evening relatively soon after the team dance. She wore some spangled purple body suit with a tutu that actually had a slimming effect on her. Her footwork on the Jive left a lot to be desired but she still got 9 from Donnie. Len gave her a more realistic 6. It was entertaining but it wasn’t a great dance. Despite the low score, I think Kirstie and Maks’ bare chest are safe for another week.

Kendra Wilkinson – You can’t shimmy to a tango so Kendra had to leave her one trick with her pony in the parking lot. (Note to self – her hubby Hank Baskett was wearing a hat pulled down over his eyes – guess he was either too embarrassed to watch or he was trying not to get drafted by the UFL) I think Kendra got a few extra shimmy points that were leftover from the team dance because there is no way her dance equaled the score she was given. As much as she needs to go home, she may actually be around one more week.

Ralph Macchio – The Karate Kid must have spent some time this past week ruminating over Mr. Miyagi-san’s Bonsai Trees because he came back focused. He quickstepped without any of his former movie role moves and even got a 10 from the guest judge – who by this time was clearly off his meds. I am still somewhat fascinated by Ralph’s “hair” this week but not enough to google a picture of it. I tried to google a picture of Karina but got firewalled. I wonder why ? Oh and just in case you were wondering, Ralph is more than safe.

Hines Ward – You folks in the audience can wave your “Terrible Towels” all you want. If I had a yellow rag in my hand, I would have been throwing it at the floor and signaling 15 yards for illegal procedure. I just don’t get the Hines Love that the judges obviously feel because that was not all that but it was enough for him to land tied atop of the leaderboard again. Steeler Nation & his inflated scores should keep him around until the final but I do think we will start to see some cracks in the final weeks.

Romeo – Bonk. Thud. Splat. Those are the sounds of Romeo coming crashing back down to earth this week. Romeo had been flying high last week and you could see in his swagger, attitude & pelvic thrusts that he knew he had what it took and that he could wear an open shirt just like Maks. It was supposed to be a Samba but it was really SomeBad. It even confused the 16 time World Professional Latin Dance Champion badly enough that he had to pause for thought before putting up the wrong paddle. I felt bad for Chelsie (his partner) because she works harder than any other pro on the show and this time she couldn’t save Romeo from himself. The worst part about this for Romeo is that he doesn’t have that “middle America” following that he needs for when the scores fade. He doesn’t have the recognition to get by on his name. He needs the high scores from the judges to offset the lack of calls. It is for that very reason that we think Chelsie is going to be quoting some Shakespeare come Wednesday morning.

The guest judge experiment was a bomb. Donnie was clueless and tried to preface every comment by talking about the previous week which he obviously hadn’t seen. Bruno was trying to upstage Donnie and Len was backpedaling so fast away from Bruno that he almost knocked Carrie Ann off the Dais. Let’s get rid of the gimmicks and get back to the basics DWTS !

That’s is for this time, come back next time when we discuss hiring Tonya Harding to kneecap Kendra as she gets ready to step out onto the floor of the Crystal Ballroom.